


Pensive, Pensieve

by Leyenn



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Community: contrelamontre, Multi, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To know is sometimes the worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pensive, Pensieve

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written as a challenge answer for Contre La Montre.

_This is not the worst moment of my life_

The ward is all white, and the people here smell of antiseptics. I eat mashed potato every day, sometimes with ketchup and sometimes, if I'm very good, with gravy and nice squishy carrots. I like carrots. I have dreams sometimes of sitting at a table and having all the carrots I can eat, and I eat and eat and they keep appearing whenever I want. Sometimes I even get a parsnip - those are really good dreams. Imagine all the carrots and parsnips and potatoes you ever could want to eat, and being allowed to sit in a chair at a table and everything.

I keep telling her about that dream, but she just smiles. She has a pretty smile. She tells me she comes here every day, but I think she might be a little weird. I know I've never seen her before. I don't like to say she's crazy, though. That would be rude.

She touches my head sometimes, where they shave me every day. It's for when I have the wig, they say, when I'm well enough. It looks better all smooth. It matches the burns. When I'm really better I can have the wig and I can have it any colour I want, they promised. I want it all red and pretty like hers.

"'Mi," she calls me, which is always funny. Of course I'm me. Who else would I be?

  


*

  


"_HERMIONE!_"

"_HERMIONE!_"

I can hear them yelling my name down the corridors and I run, stumble, run faster. I need a broom or I'll never outrun them - I'm sixth year, a prefect, a summer job, I should have a broom but I never wanted one before now. But Harry's face was burning, burning red as Ginny's hair and Ron was angry enough to kill me. All I can think of is to run.

The flagstones are freezing cold but I can't think how to warm them and I don't have my wand. I'm running across the courtyard when my robes flap awkwardly and fall under my toe and I trip, a little stumble into a huge fall with the stone coming up at me fast, fast, and then everything black.

_This is not the worst moment of my life_

  


*

  


I love her in a way I never loved anyone else, not Viktor, not Ginny, not Harry or Draco - it's all cool and gentle like a breeze when she touches me, like she's a beautiful something made only of the wind. We've stolen these moments over and over until they made me so sure that she's the one, and now we're lying in the tower room with the door locked and everyone else home for the holidays and this might be the last time. It might be the last even more than it's the first.

Her kisses are slow, like she thinks them over each time to make them just right. Her skin is soft and mine is softer against her, warm on the sheets as my hand slides down. It's perfect, perfect, too perfect.

She tenses up under my hand, making a cry, making tears. "No, Hermione, no."

It feels like a moment from some other life, crossed wires somewhere in a dream. I don't know what to do, not at all, but I try. "Shh, it's all right."

"No, no it's not." She pushes my fingers with hers, pushes them away. "Don't."

"Cho," I whisper. Desperate. Hungry. Fearful. "I love you. I'll always love you, always. _Please_."

But that won't be enough.

_This is not the worst moment of my life_

  


*

  


The wake is nearly over when Professor Lupin is suddenly standing by my shoulder. He looks at me and I want to scream and punch him in the chest, but I won't. I want to scream and strike down everyone in the room, but I won't.

Even though I could. Harry, Ron, Neville, everyone who survived instead, I could scream and wail and murder them all, right now. I wouldn't care. It still wouldn't bring her back to me.

He puts his arm around me, silently, and takes me down the corridors, into the Room of Requirement without a word.

There are people here, people I don't know. It takes me a moment to realise, of course, that these aren't real people. This is a bar, in some unknown town, because that's what I wanted - to be out in the world like a normal girl and have no one know me and no one care, no one to hurt me and no one to lose.

But Professor Lupin is still here, of course. Ordering a drink. I think I'd forgotten he was raised Muggle like me.

"It's hard," he says, when he puts the orange juice down. "Being different."

I can feel myself begin to cry. "It's harder being the same... and then having them leave you."

"Yes, it is." He covers my hand. He knows... somehow, he knows. "I still miss him. Sirius."

I look into his eyes. It's nice to know, somehow, that this will still be there in me like it is in him. This howling pain won't ever, ever go away.

At least that's something I can still feel of her.

_This is not the worst moment of my life_

  


*

  


Harry falls in a sickly green flash. Ron is screaming with the pain of it all, writhing, not least the acidio eating away at flesh beneath his robes. I don't know where I am, where anyone is. Ron's throat is bubbling red and he claws, claws, claws at it but I can't do anything, where is my wand?

I can see red coming at me, not in time to duck. Horrible blood red that might be someone's blood. Remus is spread on the ground behind me; I stumble, catch my foot on his and go sprawling. He looks so thin, not moving. He wanted to go before Harry, I know that. I don't know if he managed it.

I'm on the floor now, I can't get up. I think I may have broken my leg, or it isn't there any more. I can't really tell. Someone's bleeding red over my eyes and I think, I think it might be me.

_This is not the worst moment of my life_

  


*

  


The ward is white and cold; it smells of antiseptics. The sheets feel as if they're made of plastic. Her hair is bright and her face is lined with fears and she leans over the bowl, swirling, swirling. It's silver and shiny. I hope she won't want me to drink that.

"It's yours," she tells me. "They're yours, 'Mi. Your memories. I knew they would be, I knew I could find them for you. I knew I could make you better. Here."

She holds the bowl so carefully when she stands up, and sits so gently with it in her lap. It must be very precious.

She stirs it like metal honey in the bowl with a stick I've seen before, but I don't remember. I think I had a stick like that once, before I came here. They took it away. It should be very important to have my stick again, but they took it away. They took it all away...

She touches my forehead. There's metal honey on the stick in her hand, and it's very pretty twirling round my finger.

"'Mi," she says, like I should answer, but I don't remember what. The silver honey is pretty, though, and it's not sticky at all. She pulls my hand down and takes it back with the stick; she doesn't care that I'm sticking my tongue out at her. At least the white coat people care when they upset me. The bowl is very pretty and I want to play, but she won't let me.

"Hermione, please. Please sit still." She holds my hands down and hers are very warm. I've forgotten those hands, but I don't remember how. "Here."

She touches my head again, where I used to have hair. I think I used to have hair, long hair, like hers. Bright. Pretty. Red.

I don't remember...

_This is not the worst moment of my life_

  


*

  


There's silver honey on my head, over and over again, and it must have been hours but she's still swirling the bowl and looking at me. I don't remember why, but she's looking at me like I should.

She has a name. She comes here every day, and we talk about dreams of carrots and bright red wigs. She has a name, and I know why she's looking at me like I should know.

"Ginny..."

I remember.

I remember it all.

_This is the worst moment of my life, and it will never go away._

  


*

  



End file.
